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Death of George Shifler in Kensington Born Jan 24 1825 Murdered May 6 1844.
Philadelphia: Pub. By William Smith 706 So Third st., [ca. 1854]. J. L. Magee Lith. Hand-colored lithograph, 12.5” x 8.125” (printed area), 13.25” x 10” (sheet). CONDITION: Good, toned, color faded. A scarce print memorializing a young martyr of the American Republican Party (a precursor of the Know-Nothing Party), the first nativist to be killed in a series of anti-Catholic riots that shook the City of Brotherly Love in 1844. George Shifler, a nineteen-year-old apprentice tanner, is shown here the moment after he was shot, one hand clutching his chest and the other still raising the stars and stripes as he collapses on one knee, surrounded by three grieved and defiant companions. The riot, shown raging in the background, was prompted by a nativist rally held in the heavily Irish-Catholic neighborhood of Kensington, and was the first of several violent clashes that erupted in Philadelphia in May and July of 1844. Anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic sentiment rose in the late 1830s and early ’40s in reaction to an economic slump and increased Irish immigration. Nativist ill-feeling in Philadelphia finally erupted at the false rumor that Catholics were trying to remove Bibles from public schools, and at the May 6th rally, “Heckling yielded to fistfights and then gunfire,” and several buildings—including two Catholic churches—were destroyed. Shifler was transformed into a martyr of the nativist movement (Schrag, “Nativist”), was given a large funeral, and inspired the formation of a Shiffler Association in Philadelphia and a Shiffler Club in New York. This print, produced by a Irish-American lithographer Jonathan L. Magee (ca. 1820–1870), depicts Shifler “as a patriot, killed in the act of standing up for his country” (Schrag, “Nativist”). It was likely produced about a decade after the event pictured, by which time Magee had removed from New York to Philadelphia (in 1852), the city’s Consolidation Act had changed publisher William Smith’s address from 264 to 706 So. Third St. (in 1854), and American nativism, in the form of the Know-Nothing movement, was at its peak. OCLC records just four examples, at the Library of Congress, Villanova, the Clements Library, and AAS. A scarce Philadelphia print memorializing a nativist martyr ten years after his death, during the height of Know-Nothing fervor. REFERENCES: Schrag, Zachary. “Nativist Riots of 1844” at The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia online; Schrag, Zachary. “Martyrs to the Nation” Slate (2021) online; Piola, Erika. “Working with Graphics is Not Just Fun” at The Library Company of Philadelphia online; “Death of George Shifler” at National Museum of American History online.
Item #10158
Price: $1,800.00
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